Risk factors of non-suicidal self-injury of youth students at different developmental stages during COVID-19 pandemic in Jingzhou China

Abstract

<p>Suicide was the fourth leading cause of mortality among 15–29 years old in 2019 (World Health Organization, 2021) and constitute a major public health burden particularly in the youth population. Suicide behaviors, including deliberate self-harm (DSH) and non-suicidal self-injury (NSSI), predict future suicide attempts and suicide in child and adolescents (Zahl and Hawton, 2004; Wilkinson et al., 2011; Aggarwal et al., 2017; Song et al., 2022). While DSH was used to denote self-injury behaviors with or without suicidal intent that have non-fatal outcomes, NSSI was employed to describe the deliberate damage to body tissue of oneself without suicidal intent (Muehlenkamp et al., 2012; Samari et al., 2020). DSH and NSSI are also closely related with poor mental health conditions such as depression and substance misuse (Zahl and Hawton, 2004; Moran et al., 2015). Despite the worldwide prevalence of suicide behaviors, differential prevalence of DSH and NSSI of regions with different culture, ethnicity and socioeconomic status have been reported. A recent meta-analysis found non-western countries and low- and middle-income countries have higher aggregate prevalence of DSH and NSSI (Lim et al., 2019). Therefore, exploring risk factors of suicide behaviors of youth in the low- and middle-income regions would provide crucial insight to inform the development of preventive strategies of suicide behaviors such as NSSI and thus reduce suicide death among the most vulnerable group.</p>